The explosion of wireless devices in the home and office coupled with high demand for HD video-based content will continue to compound wireless network loading for years to come. 802.11ac is a new wireless standard designed to meet tomorrow's extreme wireless bandwidth networking needs.

The full 802.11ac specification can theoretically accommodate speeds as high as 6.8 Gbps; however the first generation of products will be rated at either 866 Mbps or 1.3 Gbps.
802.11ac uses the uncongested low interference wireless 5 GHz spectrum and is backward compatible with Dual Band 802.11n (wireless n) routers which also use the 5 GHz band. It is not compatible with standard single band wireless n devices which use the 2.4GHz band, such as most laptops and mobile devices.

802.11ac wireless coverage is similar to that of wireless n and provides whole home coverage. New Beam Forming technology further improves the ability to transmit wireless signals around physical obstacles such as masonry walls. The first generation 802.11ac devices will be released to market as early as late 2012.

"New 802.11ac represents a huge jump in wireless performance," stated Zak Wood, director of global marketing for TRENDnet. "It will be able to easily handle a large number of wireless connections simultaneously. It will also be able to support extremely high wireless throughput at great distances from the router."

TRENDnet's 1300 Mbps Dual Band Wireless AC Router, model TEW-811DR, is a concurrent dual band router with a 450 Mbps wireless n band to network everyday mobile devices and laptops and an ultra high performance 1300 Mbps wireless band.

Absolute silence without compromising performance is my only benchmark score.

Useless. There aren't even any 802.11n devices with 5GHz support. You can get bunch of routers with 5GHz support but i haven't seen a single laptop, USB WiFi or a phone with 5GHz support. ANd now this. Why!? Give us better 5GHz support first...

Useless. There aren't even any 802.11n devices with 5GHz support. You can get bunch of routers with 5GHz support but i haven't seen a single laptop, USB WiFi or a phone with 5GHz support. ANd now this. Why!? Give us better 5GHz support first...

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I don't know what planet you live on, but every Apple notebook supports 5GHz, all the decent Intel Wi-Fi cards supports 5GHz and a fair few others. That said, the 5GHz standard doesn't seem that widely adopted outside of the US so...
Considering this is set to replace 802.11n over time and that the devices are meant to be dual band for now to support 2.4GHz as well (albeit only for older devices) I guess it's not a huge issue.

Absolute silence without compromising performance is my only benchmark score.

Be aware that 802.11n and big signs "N wireless" mean absolutely nothing if it's not really 5GHz.
Because almost every single new device that i have seen supports N standard but they are all 2,4GHz. Which is rather useless since all current devices operate at this frequency and there is loads of noise created by this (resulting in sucky range and speed).

Be aware that 802.11n and big signs "N wireless" mean absolutely nothing if it's not really 5GHz.
Because almost every single new device that i have seen supports N standard but they are all 2,4GHz. Which is rather useless since all current devices operate at this frequency and there is loads of noise created by this (resulting in sucky range and speed).

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even with 'sucky speeds, noise' and all your other 2.4Ghz rage emanating from your core of hatred, i still get triple the speeds and double the range over my wifi G equipment.

2.4GHz n is still quite superior to 2.4GHz a/b... and it looks like ac is going to crap over everything. at least they had the smarts to include gigabit ports.

5GHz isn't good because it is easily absorbed by concrete and other building materials found in buildings. This is why 2.4GHz is more widely used. With that being said, so many devices use 2.4Ghz that there is also the possibility of conflicting devices and signal corruption. Basically there are cons in both frequencies, but you take the lesser of the two and you get 2.4GHz being the better option. The signal frequency does not relate towards speed at all.

5GHz isn't good because it is easily absorbed by concrete and other building materials found in buildings. This is why 2.4GHz is more widely used. With that being said, so many devices use 2.4Ghz that there is also the possibility of conflicting devices and signal corruption. Basically there are cons in both frequencies, but you take the lesser of the two and you get 2.4GHz being the better option. The signal frequency does not relate towards speed at all.

well wifi always does that dodgy full duplex marketing trick, so if they say its 1300Mb they mean both directions combined, so its more like 650Mb

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Eh? What are you on about?
It's nothing about full duplex, it's about the theoretical bandwidth minus overheads etc.
Even wired Ethernet have overheads, they're just not as high as they are when it comes to Wi-Fi.
Because it's a consumer technology the transmission power is limited to silly low amounts, a more powerful transmitter would give you the kind of speeds that are being claimed in combination with better antenna designs.

I've seen Wi-Fi setups with a range of multiple kilometres using a special type of antenna. Sadly that company didn't understand how to promote their technology and it never really took off, but they were fairly compact antennas compared to the stuff used for point to point Wi-Fi over long distance.
You be glad you never tested 802.11a in its early days, it had a range of about 5m, if you were lucky and there was nothing between you and the access point.

It also depends on the type of hardware you have, as to even have a chance of getting the kind of speeds that are being advertised you need 3x3 MIMO setups on both sides, or even better 4x4 MIMO, but as far as I'm aware only Quantenna offers that.
802.11ac supports up to 8 antennas and beamforming which should help improve the range.
That said, looking at the graph here http://www.5gwifi.org/advantages-of-80211ac.php after about 10m the speed drops off sharply, but apparently we can expect better range than 2.4GHz 802.11n.

Another neat feature of 802.11ac is that it supports something called MU-MIMO that allows multiple users to stream data simultaneously instead of having to share data streams with all the connected users. This should reduce latency and potentially increase speeds as well, although it's of course limited to how many data streams your router/access point can handle and the type of devices you're connecting to it and how many channels each device uses. Say you got a 3x3 MIMO router, you could have a 2x2 MIMO laptop and a single channel smartphone and they'd each get a dedicated data stream that wouldn't be shared between the two devices.

We'll see how 802.11ac works out, as it's as yet to be tested in real world scenarios.

Neither device need drivers, as one is a router and the other is a bridge. The question is about the UI and firmware on the devices which is a different matter...
Broadcom is a joke though, they have a 2x2 MIMO chip that can do 800Mbit/s something, yet it only has USB 2.0 interface...

5GHz isn't good because it is easily absorbed by concrete and other building materials found in buildings. This is why 2.4GHz is more widely used. With that being said, so many devices use 2.4Ghz that there is also the possibility of conflicting devices and signal corruption. Basically there are cons in both frequencies, but you take the lesser of the two and you get 2.4GHz being the better option. The signal frequency does not relate towards speed at all.

I find this statement to be false from what I have always known from networking CCNA.

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He didn't say there is more interference in 5Ghz. He said the signal is sensitive to obstacles. And he's correct. 5Ghz does not carry through obstacles nearly as well.

He said that 2.4Ghz is able to carry through obstacles better, but has more interference due to congestion.

2.4Ghz channel is super congested with so many wireless devices now days

Most wireless home phones now run @ 1.9 Ghz and cellular devices use 800 / 1800 Mhz

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That only applies to North America, as in Europe DECT runs on 2.4GHz and it's as far as I'm aware the only approved system for cordless phones in Europe. That said it might be used in other parts of the world as well that I'm not aware of. GSM uses 850/1700/1900 in the US and 900/1800 in Europe and most of the world, although this varies a bit as well depending on local regulations. It's all a mess because of already existing frequency bands being used, most of them by the military and as such consumer technology ends up with tiny slivers of spectrum.

A lot of the problems with interference could be solved by using what is still mostly used by police and military known as frequency hopping, as that vastly reduces interference and also makes for much more secure wireless connections, but alas, that is unlikely to happen when it comes to consumer technology.

He didn't say there is more interference in 5Ghz. He said the signal is sensitive to obstacles. And he's correct. 5Ghz does not carry through obstacles nearly as well.

He said that 2.4Ghz is able to carry through obstacles better, but has more interference due to congestion.

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Not exactlly true. Actually, the higher the frequency the more it penetrative it is. Issue with 5 GHz is range. The higher the frequency the shorter the wavelengths are. Which of course means less range. With 2.4ghz you could get about 100 feet reliably. With 5ghz the range is cut almost in have to about 50 feet.

Not to mention that 5ghz is limited with a lower maximum power output compared to 2.4ghz because the wavelengths are closer (higher the frequency the more damaging to organic tissue the wavelengths are). And most channels are limited to a maximum of 50mw. Which hurts the signal even more.

Not exactlly true. Actually, the higher the frequency the more it penetrative it is. Issue with 5 GHz is range. The higher the frequency the shorter the wavelengths are. Which of course means less range. With 2.4ghz you could get about 100 feet reliably. With 5ghz the range is cut almost in have to about 50 feet.

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If this applies to all wave lengths, why do lower wavelengths in sound (bass) carry through objects better than higher frequency sounds?

Useless. There aren't even any 802.11n devices with 5GHz support. You can get bunch of routers with 5GHz support but i haven't seen a single laptop, USB WiFi or a phone with 5GHz support. ANd now this. Why!? Give us better 5GHz support first...

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Hello,
There are actually a lot of devices that support 5Ghz. I have 5Ghz on my Macbook Pro, also my Asus Gamer Laptop and desktop PC connected via a linksys 5Ghz USB wifi device. I run all my devices off an Asus dual band router in the 5Ghz range and everyone else can connect to the 2.4Ghz. My printer and iphone use 2.4Ghz as well. Most media extenders / senders use 5Ghz.